... Because I Have To

Today, I am very grateful to be the featured blogger on SITS , which is a remarkable community of bloggers. The acronym says it all: the Secret is the Support.

Welcome to those who have come here through SITS, and welcome to those who have come here out of habit or just because. I hope you enjoy your visit.

Quite frequently, I read SITS features, and while I miss some on occasion, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that I’ll be the first to quote Kate Jackson.

Remember her?

Back in the days of Charlie’s Angels on television, she was deemed “the smart one.”

I don’t know where she’s taken her brains in the ensuing decades, but I do recall an interview she had with Johnny Carson.

Remember him?

Back in the days of Charlie’s Angels on television, he was the host of The Tonight Show.

I cannot remember exactly the question that Johnny had posed to Kate, but the fact that her answer stays with me speaks volumes.

She was talking about a friend’s son and how that boy wanted to break into acting. Having listened to the child’s interest, she said to him, “Do you want to get into the business because you want to act or because you have to act?”

That’s it right there.

If there’s something you have to do, you’ll be hard-pressed not to do it. No matter how much other things – things you think you want to do – get in the way.

… When I was a kid, my family had a running joke. (We were the running-joke types, which – in my opinion – can be very entertaining.) And this was the routine: If my sister misbehaved, her punishment would be no television. If I misbehaved, my punishment would be no paper or pens.

Because, for some reason, even before I knew how, I had to write.

I remember taking a pen to a legal pad, and working my way across the lines in what appeared to be cursive verse. I’d dot this and cross that (because I knew that was part of the drill), but the lines were nothing but shapes, curves, and sweeps. There was no writing there because I had not yet learned to write the words one might know beyond kindergarten.

And I certainly didn’t know how to do anything cursive…

I was simply pretending.

I was pretending to write.

To this day, I get great relaxation from doodling. If I can just hold a pen in my hand and put it to paper, I am grounded. Even if I doodle the same word over and over again, there is peace in the process.

Even if I then sit back and look at that repeated word and wonder if it is a word…

Let me have my pens and my paper. I need them.

So yes, smart angel, I have to write.

… I hope new visitors from SITS will stop by the links that I shared with Kat (reiterated below).

I also hope you’ll stop by again. You’ll find a new post every Wednesday, an excerpt from my novel every Saturday, and a rerun every Monday.

I welcome your support, and I look forward, too, to seeing what you have to write!

For more, go to:

The Distance From Our Corners addresses issues so many in the sandwich generation are concerned about.

Approaching Los Angeles is a piece that shares my reflections upon overhearing an in-flight conversation and wanting to butt in.

Too Many Machines is my homage to Dr. Seuss. I wrote it back in 1987, when the fax machine was the newest invention… I stand by my prescience.